Troubleshooting Application Configuration for Security

With security top of mind for every business these days, making sure that applications run through firewalls and other security devices is critical. One of my clients recently ran into a problem when the company wanted to put all their IP cameras and physical security equipment on a firewalled VLAN. After making some changes, the cameras and other equipment weren't reachable. They had made some incorrect assumptions about how the applications behaved.

In this video, I use Wireshark to baseline the ports and protocols a wireless IP webcam uses for its video stream in order to get it to run through the firewall. There many ways to figure this out from using netstat or similar utilities, but I am most comfortable with Wireshark. This webcam is a great example where you would assume the video stream uses HTTP/HTTPS or a separate UDP stream. This camera does not do either and in this video, I show you how I figured it out.

To avoid running into problems with projects grinding to a halt when you can't access a critical application through a security device, document your application protocols, servers, and port numbers. This may sound like a monumental task, but doesn’t take that long once you get the hang of it. I just completed this documentation for a client; it took approximately 30 minutes and was about five pages long.